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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29068002">Ready</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordsrising/pseuds/wordsrising'>wordsrising</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>the Shifting Bones [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Flight Rising</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Goodbyes, Growing Up</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 09:07:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>790</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29068002</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordsrising/pseuds/wordsrising</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When the time comes you have to let go, but not until then.  Not until you're ready.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>the Shifting Bones [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2034121</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Ready</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Xaviera waited patiently outside the Temple gates, the hot, bitter wind ruffling her feathers and making the birdskulls tied to her wings sway.  She had been waiting here since long before the sun rose, drawn to the closed gates by something deep within her that said she must come.</p><p>Papa sat beside her, displaying much more impatience.  She'd told him there was no need to accompany her, but he had insisted; since Mama was called to the Plaguebringer's service, Papa had been almost smothering in his attention.  Xaviera endured it as patiently as she did everything else.</p><p>Papa sighed, pacing in a tight circle behind Xaviera, stirring up the dust at his feet.  It drifted over his crystal hide, dulling and darkening it, but the wind carried it away from Xaviera so her own hide sparkled unimpeded in the morning sun.</p><p>At long last, the gates gave a weary creak, then slowly opened outward with a deep, grating groan, and the Temple's sole occupant stepped out, her armor gleaming darkly under its shadow-dusk wrappings.</p><p>Xaviera stood.  Papa stopped pacing to glare at Mother-touched Hemera, who paid him no notice at all as she studied Xaviera, her dark red eyes filled with something more than mere sight.</p><p>"Her Mark is upon you," Hemera said after a long silence during which only Papa moved.  "It is weak yet, but it is there.  The Mother calls you, child: do you answer?"</p><p>"I answer," Xaviera responded immediately, needing no further explanation, because she had always known.  She hadn't known she knew, but the knowledge had been there nonetheless, buried beneath conscious thought, a soft murmuring song at the back of her mind, waking and sleeping: she belonged to the Mother.</p><p>Hemera nodded, her pitch black mane drifting around her in the wind, her own birdskulls (bleak black to Xaviera's white) tugging at their anchoring cords.</p><p>"It is not an easy path you will walk, child," she warned Xaviera, her gaze drifting to where Papa still stood.  "It is a lonely one.  You must make peace with your decisions and make your good-byes."</p><p>"I understand, Mother-touched Hemera," Xaviera said, bowing her head.</p><p>Hemera nodded once more before slipping back into the Temple grounds, leaving the gates open.  Xaviera turned to Papa.</p><p>Papa sighed, claws tearing at the dirt.  "Knew it," he commented, all four Arcane eyes shimmering with tears.  "Knew since your mother was called."</p><p>"I'm sorry, Papa," Xaviera said softly.</p><p>"Don't be.  You were meant for this." He shook his head as if trying to clear it.  "You're a big girl now."</p><p>"I will always be your little lacewing, though."</p><p>"Of course you will," Papa assured her, wrapping himself around her, and Xaviera wondered just when she'd gotten bigger than him.  It seemed like only yesterday he'd been able to hide her under one wing; now he had to reach up to bump their noses together.  "My special little lacewing."</p><p>"I will miss you," she told him, her own eyes beginning to burn with unshed tears.  "I will serve the Mother faithfully, but you will always be my Papa."</p><p>“If you make me cry in public I’m disowning you,” Papa growled, but she knew he didn’t mean it.</p><p>They stood like that outside the Temple gates for what felt like a lifetime before Xaviera pulled reluctantly away.  Her goodbyes were made; now it was time to go.</p><p>Papa let her, his expression mournful.  His mate had gone to the Plaguebringer’s service, and now their child went to the Mother, too, in a service different but no less profound.  It tore at Xaviera’s heart to break his so, but then the Mother had always been a goddess who called for sacrifice and pain.</p><p>Papa stepped back, then turned without a word and tore off into the depths of the Wasteland, leaving Xaviera alone.  She watched until she couldn’t see him for the dust he raised, then turned to the waiting gates.</p><p>Beyond the gates was a little courtyard paved in stone, centered on a stone well.  Cindermint and sand creeper climbed the walls from little stone beds set beneath rough square windows, and a single sorry-looking honeycrisp tree stood in the corner, roots buckling the paving stones around it.</p><p>Hemera waited patiently in the doorway across from the gates, eyes closed, mane still drifting despite the high walls keeping the wind out.  She opened her eyes as Xaviera stepped across the line between Wasteland and Temple grounds.</p><p>“Are you ready, Mother-touched Xaviera?” she asked, and it was a dozen questions in one, each more meaningful than the last.</p><p>Xaviera took a deep breath of air scented with cindermint and honeycrisp and sun-scorched dust, and something in her settled.  “Yes, Mother-touched Hemera,” she said, “I’m ready.”</p>
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